Remembering 9/11

Jumbo jets line up on the tarmac of Halifax International Airport Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001, after nearly 50 jets were diverted to Halifax after the attack on the World Trade Centre in New York. (DAVID N. HAYES/Special to the National Post) via Daily News.

While Canadian-American relations have been strained in recent months by trade disputes, it is important to remember that Canada and the United States share an unbreakable bond of friendship, a bond that was only strengthened by the horrific terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., 17 years ago.

“Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom, came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts,” U.S. President George W. Bush told his fellow Americans in a televised address from the Oval Office on the dark night of Sept. 11, 2001.

“I’ve directed the full resources of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and to bring them to justice,” Bush said of the unfolding investigation into the deadliest co-ordinated terrorist attacks in the history of the world.

It was a clear and bright morning when jihadists hijacked four commercial jetliners and crashed two of the planes full of innocent passengers into the World Trade Center in New York. Another hijacked commercial jet slammed into the Pentagon in Washington. And a fourth hijacked jetliner crashed into an empty field in Pennsylvania after the passengers valiantly fought back against and overpowered the terrorists.

Nearly 3,000 innocent people, including 24 Canadians, were murdered that awful day by terrorists of the al-Qaida terrorist network.

The day the world changed

“When I woke up on Sept. 12, America was a different place,” Bush writes in his 2010 book “Decision Points.”

Not only were commercial aircraft grounded, the streets of the American capital were being patrolled by armed vehicles. “A wing of the Pentagon had been reduced to rubble,” the former leader of the free world writes. “The New York Stock Exchange was closed. New York’s Twin Towers were gone.”

On the morning of Sept. 12, Bush arrived at the Oval Office at 7 a.m. “The first order of the day was to return phone calls from the many world leaders who had offered their sympathy,” he writes.

The first call was with British Prime Minister Tony Blair. “The conversation helped cement the closest friendship I would form with any leader,” Bush says.

The president also spoke with the prime minister of Canada. “Jean Chretien of Canada said simply, ‘We are there,’ a promise that had been upheld by Canadian citizens who welcomed thousands of stranded Americans after their flights were diverted.”

In response to the devastating jihadist strikes on Canada’s best friend and closest ally, Prime Minister Chretien introduced a motion in the House of Commons on Sept. 17, 2001, that expressed “sorrow and horror at the senseless and vicious attack on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.” The motion also extended “heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims and to the American people.”

The motion also reaffirmed Parliament’s “commitment to the humane values of free and democratic society and its determination to bring to justice the perpetrators of this attack on these values and to defend civilization from any future terrorist attack.” After the motion was adopted, the House of Commons observed a moment of silence.

The prime minister then rose to address the House of Commons.

“In the sad and trying days since the awful news came from New York and Washington, it has been clear that the civilized nations of the world have a solemn duty to speak as one against the scourge of terrorism,” Chretien declared.

“There are those rare occasions when time seems to stand still, when a singular event transfixes the world,” the prime minister continued. “There are also those terrible occasions when the dark side of human nature escapes civilized restraint and shows its ugly face to a stunned world. Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001, will forever be etched in memory as a day when time stood still.”

Chretien recalled how 100,000 Canadians gathered on Parliament Hill for a ceremony to honour the victims of the 9/11 attacks. And many more Canadians turned out for ceremonies across the country on the National Day of Mourning just three days after Sept. 11.

Canadian-American friendship

“When terrorists struck at the heart of America on Sept. 11, 2001, there was a valuable lesson — perhaps many valuable lessons — to be learned about the relationship between the United States and Canada,” wrote the late Paul Cellucci in his 2005 book “Unquiet Diplomacy.” Cellucci was appointed the U.S. ambassador to Canada in 2001 by President Bush.

“The immediate lesson was that the instinct of Canadians was to help their neighbours in whatever way they could,” he stated.

“Most of the world felt horror and revulsion at the death of almost 3,000 innocent people who died because they went to work that day, but Canadians may have felt it more acutely simply because they are neighbours and the bonds between the two countries are too numerous to count.”

Cellucci recounted how Prime Minister Chretien called him to offer whatever assistance was needed. And Cellucci praised Canadians on the East Coast for taking in stranded American airline passengers.

For Cellucci, “the spontaneous outpouring of sympathy, generosity and goodwill from friends and even total strangers was overwhelming.” And he wrote that “seeing the Maple Leaf flying at half-mast all over Ottawa in solidarity with the Stars and Stripes touched us in ways difficult to express.”

Of Canada’s National Day of Mourning on Sept. 14, Cellucci said that it was “unforgettable.” And he stated that “the mournful silence of the thousands on Parliament Hill was powerful beyond words. Only the sound of the carillon bells from the Peace Tower broke the stillness.”

In addition, Cellucci offered praise for Chretien, who delivered a speech on the lawn of Parliament Hill that day. The prime minister told the mourners that “we will be with the United States every step of the way.” Describing Chretien’s speech as “unequivocal” support for the U.S., Cellucci said that the American people were very grateful to Canada.

“In the months that followed, the prime minister was as good as his word,” Cellucci said. “Canada was an important member of the NATO coalition that routed the Taliban from Afghanistan.”

Canada was, indeed, an active member of the NATO-led, UN-sanctioned mission to oust the Taliban regime, which aided and abetted the al-Qaida terror network that executed the 9/11 attacks. According to the Veterans Affairs Canada website, the Afghan mission “involved the deployment of over 40,000 Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) personnel — the largest deployment since the Second World War.” And 158 Canadian soldiers “lost their lives in service while participating in our country’s military efforts in Afghanistan.”

Transformative effect

The 9/11 terrorist attacks had a transformative effect on the Bush administration, writes Condoleezza Rice in her 2011 memoir, “No Higher Honour.” Rice first served Bush as national security adviser and later as secretary of state.

According to Rice, the events of Sept. 11 turned Bush “into a wartime president and all of us into members of a war council.”

To mark the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Rice, then secretary of state, flew north to attend a remembrance ceremony in Nova Scotia, the home province of Peter MacKay, then Canada’s foreign affairs minister.

Rice wanted to mark the anniversary with “an international flavour.” According to the first African-American woman to serve as secretary of state, “Canada, particularly its Eastern Coast, had responded to 9/11 in the most remarkable way, taking the aircraft that had to be grounded immediately and harbouring the suddenly displaced passengers.”

Rice points out that “Nova Scotians had taken hundreds of Americans into their homes.” And she notes that “the hosts were total strangers who were just lending a helping hand when needed.”

It will always be important to remember and mark the carnage of the 9/11 attacks and suffering of the victims. But Sept. 11 should also be a day to remember that Canada and the United States are the best of friends who always stand ready to help one another in times of tragedy and danger.